Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.
Solomon having tried what satisfaction was to be had in learning first, and then in the pleasures of sense, and having also put both together, here compares them one with another and passes a judgment upon them. I. He sets himself to consider both wisdom and folly.
Commenting on Ecclesiastes 2:12-16
Then I sat that wisdom excelleth folly,.... However, this upon a review of things he could not but own, that natural wisdom and knowledge, though there was no true happiness and satisfaction in them, yet they greatly exceeded folly and madness; as far as light excelleth darkness; as the light of the day the darkness of the night; the one is pleasant and delightful, the...
(Pro 17:24). The worldly "wise" man has good sense in managing his affairs, skill and taste in building and planting, and keeps within safe and respectable bounds in pleasure, while the "fool" is wanting in these respects ("darkness," equivalent to fatal error, blind infatuation), yet one event, death, happens to both (Job 21:26).